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Help Your Child With Reading Comprehension

Long after children can sound out all the words on the page, they may still have problems understanding what they read.Help your child read a story or an assignment in a textbook with the following tips.

Get Ready.Before your child reads a word, take a few minutes to look through the chapter.Ask questions.“What do you think this will be about?”Have your child look at the pictures.What ideas does she have after looking at them?

Scan the reading quickly.See if there are any words that may be hard to pronounce.Point out these words.Tell your child what they mean (or help your child look them up in a dictionary).

Take a look at the questions at the end of the story or chapter, if there are any.They will help guide your child’s reading.

Read the story or chapter.Your child might read it silently, then later read it aloud to you.

Ask some questions about the reading.See if your child can tell you the main idea of what she read.

Ask your child to read the questions at the end of the selection aloud.Then have him restate each question in his own words.

Ask your child to answer a question.If she can’t, pick out one or two key words in the question.Then look back through the reading to find the place in the text that includes those words.Have your child read that part aloud.

~ Taken from Parents Make the Difference, The Parent Institute

Building Math Skills

You can challenge your child with mini math quizzes each day.In the elementary grades children learn "integers."These are whole numbers—not fractions or decimals.They can be positive or negative—above zero or below.Children first learn small numbers—one through 10.Then they move up to 100, to 1,000, etc.

Learning integers takes memorization and lots of practice.Quizzing your child on integers each day can help.For example, when your child wants to go outside to play, his "ticket" out the door might be to count to a certain number by twos, fives, or tens.Or ask her to recite all the numbers from 100 to 2500 by hundreds.Check with your child's teacher about what numbers to use.Make it fun!Gently correct any errors. Or help out if your child gets stuck.You don't want this memory drill to be too hard.